


Another Treaty, Closer and Closer

by caelondian



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Genre: Gen, judges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-30 04:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelondian/pseuds/caelondian
Summary: Luso learns about the jagd Zellea from a witch. (Unfathomable truth.)





	Another Treaty, Closer and Closer

Luso trudged through the muddy swamp, fretting a little that it was getting really dark. And then the spooks would come out. He definitely didn't want that.

He rushed because of Zellea. Because of Helje and Ahli and all the other spots on the map that just seem to...be non-existent, to not follow the laws of the universe. He couldn't stand all that cryptic nonsense that Lezaford liked to spew, and just wanted answers. And he knew just the person to ask.

The Witch of the Fens, always giving of answers if they pertained. While the wizened mage Lezaford would have you fishing through mysterious metaphors, the Witch laid it out flat. She was sometimes too blunt, scaring away people who might trespass on her.

However, when he reached the tiny hut in the marsh, he was let down to see the lantern within wasn't lit. Looking around warily, he snuck up to the house hoping to see her within, concocting some nightly brew. He looked around for creatures of the night, those things that would easily munch on his yummy flesh, and then slowly peeked into the hut's open door.

"Aaggh!!"

Luso screamed and jumped back, surprised to see the Witch's face staring directly at him. His surprised shout echoed all throughout the dank and empty marsh. There was a great hush in the nightlife after the scream, frogs warily stopping their serenade and the watery creatures diving deep into their muddy homes.

Instead of even a "hello", the Witch of the Fens tilted her head at his loud reaction.

"Geez! You scared me half to death!" Luso panted.

"Then it would be unwise to turn now," came her creepy reply.

Suddenly Luso felt his hair rising on his neck, afraid of a zombie or marlboro baby sneaking behind him. He quickly spun around and jumped back toward the hut only to see a bumpy toad standing just behind where his heels were.

His first thought was to say "ha ha, very funny" but he suddenly realised...

"You just made a joke," he said.

"I'm not incapable," she muttered and then fell quite silent for a few moments while Luso looked at the pestering toad. "You have scared away a very interesting entity in the Fens."

"Oh. Sorry. What were you looking at?"

"A fleshling."

"A zombie...?"

"Something worse, I fear."

Luso just shuddered. The Witch then turned to him, looking him up and down, then promptly went within her tiny workspace to light the lantern within.

"I still say you are most strange to come to this place," she spoke, working, "You fear the inhabitants yet you still return."

"Yeah...You're worth it!" Luso replied.

The Witch stopped for a moment, giving him a very serious, stern look, before beginning a new draught of some sort.

"Just wondering if you knew anything about jagds."

"But a thing," she replied, pulling off jars from the shelves and shovelling some things in the big pot full of water. Luso thought she looked pretty frail so he wondered how she toted that big cauldron to the waterside to draw the disgusting, Mist-infested water.

"A friend—er...Yeah, a friend told me that they're weak spots in-between this world and another. But that doesn't make any sense, because I read in an old book at the library—"

"You? At the library?" the Witch mused without humorous tone.

"Ha ha," Luso retorted, "That's how I got here, you know."

She nodded as if she had always known, even though Luso had said nothing about it until now.

"Anyway, I read this old book that said judges used to not be adjoined to a clan, and they could roam anywhere they wanted!"

"Somewhat, yes."

"Well, they didn't go to jagds. And I don't know why. My friend says it's because it's dangerous...but judges are immortal! What do they have to fear?"

The Witch worked in silence a bit as the brew began to smell oddly familiar and Luso wondered if she was just cooking and not actually making any tonic. Finally she spoke as she took that huge spoon again and began to stir.

"Your 'friend' has been misinformed. And I expected better of Lezaford."

"Ack! How did you know?"

"Not many know of the jagds, boy clanner. They are for those with, shall we say, 'the sight'."

Luso didn't understand but he should have known she would be just as mystic as Lezaford. He smiled at the thought that the two may have been close friends or maybe partners in the magickal works.

"Yes, they are weak spots, places where rifts open heartily. And it is just this that makes them untouchable by the old judges."

She flipped her spoon up and some of the fluid splattered on the walls. She tasted the big end and showed her displeasure, grabbing a big jar of what looked like fuzzy, green grass and hastily throwing in tuftfulls.

"The rifts that did open, as cracks, something so small, seeped Mist in. Mist is too strong and thick to condense into crystals or magick, so it is basically a deadzone."

"Deadzone?"

"Aye. No strong magicks can work there."

"But I was transported there!" Luso recalled, remembering when they had switched there for a moment and had tried to cast a spell just to see if it was a dream or real. "I used a spell and it worked fine."

"Hmh. Boy clanner, do you think you some great mage? I meant the magicks of the judges, magick so strong that it keeps the judges alive for eternity."

Stung, Luso hushed and listened intently, while the Witch pulled out a salted meat and plopped it into the cauldron. It turned a fiery red and Luso knew she had been cooking.

"There could be no free-standing judges as the magick would not allow it. That means there are no laws either."

"Laws?"

"Aye, back then, judges enforced strict laws. Now it is not so rough—you recall your first time here?"

"Yeah, I—wait, how did you know?"

Ignoring his question, she continued.

"As was told to you, restrictions in battle will send your judge away, but in the past a clanner would be punished or jailed. He may also avoid persecution in the jagd at the price of death."

"Death!?" Luso asked, grateful he had arrived here much later than she was recalling.

"The judges protect you from death, yes? Without them adjoined to a clan and unable to enforce laws in a jagd, clanners who sparred there and were killed were truly...killed."

The grim realisation shocked Luso into a revered kind of silence. She said nothing as well, wafting some of the steam rising from the mess in the big pot and sniffed it. Luso thought it smelled like a jambalaya.

"What about now?" he thought aloud, "The judges are adjoined...and mine was there in Zellea!"

"The weaker judges of these days can uphold a single restriction against you, and so they are not using such strong magicks. As I remember, in the last point before the Great Shift, there were three differing laws per day. Rather rough."

 _The Great Shift...?_ , Luso thought.

"You've been around for a long time..." Luso tested. But the Witch seemed to ignore him as she poured some of the orange-coloured broth into some wooden bowls.

"You seek many things from me," she said, handing him a bowl full of delicious-smelling soup-like substance, "Many others have done less."

Luso nodded and when he took the large wooden spoon from the Witch, he filled his mouth with the soup stuff, having worked up quite an appetite floundering in the swamp to get to her. It tasted wonderful, but it was ridiculously spicy and he had to huff and puff to relax his burning mouth.

"If it is unpleasant, do not partake,"

His mouth halfway full again of spicy soup, he sputtered some incoherent words that almost made the Witch grin ever-so-slightly. He quickly swallowed and corrected himself.

"Phew! It's...puff...spicy, but...huff...it's good!"

"Hmm. Curious boy clanner."

Having learnt quite a bit in just a short time, he thanked her by eating up all of his soup, and she saw him off into the Fens. As he left, she cast a silent, protective spell on him. Then she turned and blew out the lantern to await her stalker in the swamp.


End file.
